


To the Sky

by waltzmatildah



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Crack and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-02
Updated: 2015-05-02
Packaged: 2018-03-26 18:52:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3860815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waltzmatildah/pseuds/waltzmatildah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek arrives in The After.</p><p>  <i>One person.</i></p><p>  <i>Dead.</i></p><p>  <i>With no hope for ghost!sex cameos or opening credits fake outs seven days from now.</i></p><p>  <i>This is for real.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Sky

  
_maybe, in another life, I could find you there..._

 

*

Izzie’s preparing to roast stuffed peppers when the alarm sounds, a shrill siren that reverberates sharply through the chopping board on the kitchen bench, sends it skittering an inch or so to the left by the power of the vibrations alone.

She squeals and brings her hands to her face, only just manages not to stab herself in the eye and then, calamitously, the foot, as she drops the large knife she’d been using and it clatters to the dark tile at her feet.

_Shit._

The alarm sounds again. 

That’s two.

She manages to hold her breath against the noise this time, waits with bated breath for the inevitable chaos to descend.

Three…

Two…

…

 

 

“Oh my God, who is it?”

Lexie launches through the open kitchen door like a skittish filly, eyes wide with a confusing combination of shock and perverse excitement.

Izzie shrugs back her _I know as much as you do_ reply as the alarm sounds for the third and final time and she deciphers the code with practiced ease.

One person.

Dead.

With no hope for ghost!sex cameos or opening credits fake outs seven days from now.

This is for real.

She fills Lexie in on this much. Pours them both a glass of pinot gris to get them through the next fifteen minutes and abandons the peppers to the solitude of a now empty room.

 

 

They settle themselves on the worn leather couch in the Arrivals Lounge, intently watching the unobtrusive, locked doorway opposite with an obsessive kind of fervor neither will admit to if questioned.

George is sprawled on the floor with Doc. The two of them are inseparable these days and it makes Izzie glow with a warm kind of nostalgia to think back and recall the pair of them. There are not many things about The Before that she can afford to remember with an unqualified fondness, but the antagonism between George and Doc is definitely one of them.

Reed is in the shower, Izzie’s not convinced Lucy isn’t in there with her, but she mostly stays out of their way, _for reasons_ , so she’s not up to date on the goings on in that particular _arrangement_.

Izzie is secretly pleased they won’t be here for this.

Just in case…

 

 

Mark saunters into the room from the direction of the cellar. He’s wearing nothing but a white towel the size of a scrap of paper and Izzie barely blinks because, these days, Mark saunters _everywhere_ in a white towel the size of a scrap of paper.

Mostly she enjoys it. 

Mostly she enjoys that _Lexie_ clearly enjoys it, even though she vehemently pretends that she doesn’t.

In this context, though, she can’t help but think he might rue the decision ten minutes from now.

She does a quick head count as Mark tops up her glass of white.

The novelty of these moments has worn thin for some of them, while others never really cared for the ceremony of the spectacle right from the start, bitter and shriveled by their own experience of The Departure.

There’s she and Lexie, obviously. George and Doc and Mark and Adele, and Adele looks so absently hopeful that Izzie is almost, for a split second, able to set aside her own manic desires and cross her fingers for the older woman.

_Almost…_

Cristina and Burke are having sex in his room. Izzie doesn’t need to climb the two flights of stairs to the third floor and press her ear against the cool surface of the closed door in order to know this because Cristina and Burke are _always_ having sex.

It takes a lot to freak her out these days.

No one cares where Charles is.

 

 

Lexie’s foot is tapping against Izzie’s knee and Izzie forces herself to stare at it. 

They’ve been through this before.

She reaches a hand forward and clamps it around her socked toes, meets Lexie’s already teary eyes with what she hopes is a gentle kind of confidence.

“It won’t be her, Lex.”

“I know,” she nods back, “Of course it won’t. I hope it’s _not_ , in fact, because…” 

She trails off as she blinks, two fat tears betraying her sentiment.

Izzie squeezes once, she’s never had a sister and she won’t sully their relationship by pretending she gets it, but being torn in two by bone-numbing desire and a fierce longing for the continued happiness of someone she loves?

That much Izzie _completely understands…_

 

 

Mark drinks wine straight from the bottle.

Denny walks in and then walks back out again.

As he is routinely wont to do.

In all fairness though, he _has_ made the trip himself no less than three times, and even now risks a recall at the drop of a hat. He pretends he doesn’t miss the controversy of it all, but Izzie calls bullshit and rolls her eyes at _that_ particular lie on a regular basis.

She vacillates between being jealous and being wholly and utterly _relieved_ she’s not in the same boat.

The only Non-Dead guaranteed never to return.

She always has been a little bit different to everyone else, after all.

 

 

The air-lock releases, signaling the moment is imminent. Erica wanders into Izzie’s peripheral vision and leans against the doorframe in a way that suggests she’s trying really hard not to care, but absolutely _does_ in spite of herself.

She’s another one Izzie tries to steer clear of.

Lexie’s foot presses _hard_ against her knee.

Izzie downs the rest of her wine.

Closes her eyes. Holds her breath.

 

 

There is silence.

 

 

Mark kind of screams. 

And Lexie’s _no_ is strangled and choking and Izzie wants to open her eyes but she can’t. 

_She can’t._

It’s not Alex, she knows it’s not Alex. Mark would not scream for Alex. If she keeps her eyes shut, just for an extra beat… it _could be_ Alex for a second more.

Lexie’s on the verge of hyperventilating then and Izzie feels movement beside her as she no doubt launches to her feet.

George’s _seriously_ is so full of shock and disbelief and a thousand other nuanced emotions that Izzie relinquishes her hold on a future that remains just out of grasp and dares open her eyes.

It’s Derek Shepherd.

 

 

_Derek freaking Shepherd._

 

 

He’s wearing that shell-shocked kind of expression that has accompanied them all at some point. Only Denny had managed a smile and jovial _hi, guys_ the third time ‘round. 

Or so the story goes.

Mark’s expression is similar, and Izzie thinks she’s right regarding the towel about now because it’s heaped at his feet in a puddle of damp cotton and clearly Naked Mark is _not_ what their new house-mate had been expecting as far as a welcoming committee goes.

 _”Shiiiiiit.”_

George again. And he always can be relied upon for eloquence.

Izzie’s only just starting to become aware of her own heart beating in her chest again when Lexie launches forward and slaps Derek once across the face.

 _Slaps_ him.

Properly.

“How dare you!” she’s screaming as Izzie’s feet move of their own accord, shift her forward by feet and inches ‘til she’s wrapping her arms around Lexie and dragging her off, dragging her away.

“How dare you do this to her!”

Derek’s leather duffle drops at his side.

 

 

Mark gets dressed. Adele makes tea, and Charles wanders in at some point before making a u-turn and then comes back minutes later bearing a recycled milk crate full of booze.

Izzie deigns to acknowledge his presence with a raised eyebrow as she extracts an unopened bottle of tequila and twists the cap with purpose.

 _Good thinking_ , she supposes it says. Her eyebrow.

That’d been her intention, anyway. 

She takes a practiced slug of liquor herself before lifting the lip of the bottle to Lexie’s own.

“Drink,” she says.

Lexie does.

And Erica’s the first to ask the obvious question, “So, what did she do to _you_?”

 

 

Sometimes, Izzie thinks the more pertinent question is, ‘so, what did _you_ do to _her_?’

 

 

Lexie gets drunk. Truth be told, Izzie gets drunk, too.

Derek says, “there was this semi,” and George says, “well at least there wasn’t a bus,” and Lexie screams, still hysterical for the most part, “well at least there weren’t any fucking coyotes,” and, really, it’s all down-hill from there.

Cristina and Burke keep having sex.

Reed and Lucy keep showering.

Adele gets out her knitting and remembers to forget them all again and it is she that Izzie envies the most.

 

 

Izzie waits until the chaos has largely subsided before cornering Derek in the hallway and offering him a sad smile of solitude she’s not entirely sure she means.

“Izzie Stevens,” he says, and his voice wrapped around her name makes her shiver. She rarely hears it spoken these days.

He leans forward and reaches out one hand, settles his palm solidly on her shoulder and _looks at her_.

“He’s happy,” he says, answering her unasked question, and his smile is soft for a beat before it blurs out completely and Izzie has to blink rapidly to clear her vision.

“He is?” she answers, voice barely rising to a whisper.

“Yeah,” Derek nods, “he is.”

 

 

She swallows thickly, wraps her arms around herself and traps her shaking hands at her sides. She’s forgotten how to move. How to think. How to _be._ And Derek just stands there, let’s her have a moment to collect herself, judgment free.

Ever McDreamy.

“I’m glad,” she finally manages with a nod, clearing her voice as she speaks before repeating her declaration, stronger this time.

“I’m glad.”

“Me, too,” Derek agrees, seems to falter for a beat, “I’m glad because… I need him to look after Meredith for me.”

He looks up then, his own eyes swimming, “Do you think he can look after Meredith for me?”

“Oh, Derek,” she says, his name like a sigh as she steps forward and wraps him in an awkward hug, “Those two have been looking after each other since before we ever truly mattered to either of them.”

She steps away again, looks him fiercely in the eye, “Alex will have her back, Derek, always, I can absolutely promise you that.”


End file.
